For the first time, avian flu has been found in California\u2019s marine mammals, and wildlife officials are working to contain its spread.<\/p>\n
Seven weaned elephant seal pups have tested positive for avian bird flu at A\u00f1o Nuevo State Park in San Mateo County.<\/p>\n
Christine Johnson\u2019s lab tested the samples before sending them to the National Veterinary Laboratory to confirm the results.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey were displaying respiratory and neurological disease signs, so specifically the neurological disease, which is pretty typical for HPAI avian influenza, was weakness and tremors and seizures,\u201d said Johnson, Director of the Institute for Pandemic Insights at UC Davis. <\/p>\n
She said the pups did not survive and no treatment could save them.<\/p>\n
“There\u2019s approximately 30 that might\u2019ve been affected to date on the colony and samples are in progression through the various laboratories,\u201d Johnson said. <\/p>\n
In San Luis Obispo County, local organizations have been made aware of the outbreak.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve been in communication with our counterparts in Santa Cruz who are working in a unified command with NOAA and Fish and Wildlife and other agencies, and we\u2019ll continue to gather that information and anything that\u2019s relevant to us,” said Dan Falat, California State Parks San Luis Obispo Coast District Superintendent.<\/p>\n
Cal Poly professor Heather Liwanag earned her PHD at UC Santa Cruz and spent some time at the rookery where the flu was detected.<\/p>\n
She is involved in monitoring the seals at Piedras Blancas near San Simeon and has been on the lookout for avian flu for the last few years.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe saw the devastation that this did for the southern elephant seals in the southern hemisphere. We\u2019ve been keeping an eye because the birds are the main vector for this pathogen and the birds do travel between hemispheres,\u201d Liwanag said. <\/p>\n
Liwanag said that what\u2019s happening in San Mateo County seems like a localized outbreak, but her team is ready in case they\u2019re asked to do some tests on asymptomatic seals on the Central Coast.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf we are asked by the agencies to do that, then we would definitely help out with that. We\u2019re not really equipped to do that ourselves so that would be in collaboration with The Marine Mammal Center,\u201d Liwanag said. <\/p>\n
The Marine Mammal Center told KSBY News that they have \u201ctemporarily suspended\u201d responses to elephant seals and Pacific harbor seals out of caution.<\/p>\n
As of Thursday, Feb. 26, no cases have been detected on the Central Coast.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For the first time, avian flu has been found in California\u2019s marine mammals, and wildlife officials are working…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":493617,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[79,201],"class_list":["post-493616","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-science","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/493616","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=493616"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/493616\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/493617"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=493616"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=493616"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=493616"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}